Improvement in sewing-machines



3 Sheets-Sheet 1.

-J.-N.T ARBOX. SEWING MACHINE.

Patented Sept. 5, 1865.

3 SheetsSheej; 2.

J. N. TARBVOX. SEWING MACHINE.

Patented Sept. 5, 1865.

7&227:

3 SheetsSheet 3.

'J. N. TARBOX. SEWING MAGBINE.

7/; wzcsses 42 44/ 4% UNITE STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JOHN N. TARBOX, or BUFFALO, NEW YonK.

IMPROVEM ENT IN SEWING-MACHINES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 49,803, dated September5, 1865.

T0 all'whom it may concern:

Be it known that 1, JOHN N. TARBOX, of Buffalo, in the county of Erieand State of New York, have invented, made, and applied to use a certainnew and useful Improvement in Sewing-Machines adapted to Making ButtonHoles, &c.; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear,and exact description fication, wherein- Figure 1 is a front elevationofmy machine.

Fig. 2 is an inverted plan of the bed-plate and parts attached thereto.Fig. 3 is an elevation of the machine at the side where the looperoperates, and Fig. 4 is an elevation of the-machine on the oppositeside, showing the device for moving the needle-arm and needle.

My invention relates to mechanism for producing a double-looped orbutton-hole stitch, one loop being taken from the needle while it isbelow the cloth, over a looping-instrument that itselt'carries thesecond thread, and, crossin g the path of the needle, rises above thecloth, so that the needle, on its descent,.takes a loop from saidlooper. The looper, retiring below the cloth, drops the first lo'opofneedle-thread, which, by the movementof theneedle and takeup, draws uparound th ejsecon d or lower th read, and then the looper goes forwardand takes a looper of needle-thread, and the sewing-proceeds as before.These concatenations are effected principally by a looper that is on thearm of a rock-shaft, placed diagonally to the feeding device and at aninclination to the bed of the machine, so that the looper moves n thearc of a circle the plane of which crosses the needle, the looperentering the loop of needle-thread on one side of the needle; thencerising, passes with its point on the other side of the needle to giveoff a loop of its own I thread, as aforesaid.

In the drawings, a is the frame-work of the machine, carrying the mainshaft 1), rotated by a band to the pulley c, or by any other suitabledevice. The crank d may be provided for shaped slot, h, operated upon bya crank-pin orroller, 1, on a disk, 2, at the end of the main themachine by hand or for finishing to its surface.

shaft 1). The shape of" the heart-cam slot h is" such that'the needlemoves rapidly when out of the cloth and remains in the cloth a longerperiod-in order that the looper may have time for its movement, and theroller 1, passing below the point in the heart-slot, gives a mo' mentaryriseto the needle to form a loop.

Thea-rm k from the frame 0 extends over the bed I of the machine,'asusual, and has at its'end an ordinary pressure-foot, n, that is keptdown by a spring within the end of the arm. Said foot, however, iscapable of being raised until its guide-key comes to a horizontal slot,3, in the said arm, that allows of its being, with the presser n, turnedinto the position shown inFig. 1, out of the way of the needle andlooper, when the button-hole is beingput into its position on the bed,and'theu turned back again to hold down the cloth. while being sewed.

I find it necessary to keep the tension of the needle-thread suflicientto properly pull up the loops in sewing and to keep. the thread out ofthe way in perforating the cloth. Therefore I employ a positiv'etake-up,consisting of the bent lever m on the fulcrum 4, one arm of which has aneye, 5, through which the needle-thread passes, and the other armterminates with a roller, 6, that is operated on by the cam 12 upon theshaft b. This cam p is shaped, asshown, to keep up the slack of theneedle-thread at all times,-except when a loop is being formed and takenby the looper.

q isthe spool of needlethread, and 1' any usual friction apparatus,applied to the thread to give the necessary tension.v The needlethreadis shown in blue lines, while the lower thread is shown in red linespassing away from the spool 8 through the eye 7, thence around thefriction or tension plates t, through an eye, 8, on the spring take-up,to the guide-hook 9, and thence to the looper o. The looper o is formedin the arc of a circle,.and is attached to theend of an arm thatprojects from the shaft u, set in bearings 10 11 depending from J theunder side of the bedfl. This shaft is diagonal to the bed and at aninclination, also, A spring, 12, around this shaft u tends to rotate theshaft so as to keep the end of the looper projected through a hole pro-'vided for it in the bed'adjacent to and joining with the needi'eopening.At the other end of the shaft u is a pinion, 13, takinginto teeth on thesegmentavibratiug'on a fulcrum, 15, auda roller, 16, on

said segment is operated upon by a cam, 20, on the main shaft b.Theshape of this camis such that the motions required are given to thelooper by the rotation of its' shaft a through the segment 'v and pinion13, the spring 12 keeping theroller16 to thecam to at all times, exceptwhen the work is being entered or withdrawn, when an arm, at, upon. thesegment 12 is employed to draw that for-. ward and draw down the looper,in which po-' sition the parts may be held by a shoulder on the arm asacting as a button to hold the segment forward when said arm :10 isgiven a partial turn to'cause the shoulder to button over a catch uponthe penden-tbearing 10.

A guide-hook, y, is provided above the bed land adjacent to the openingfor the looper, which hook, projecting through the buttonhole in thecloth, holds it open sufficiently for the looper to pass up withouttouching, the side of saidbutton hole opposite to that-on which thesewing .is,.-being performed. The looper o hasameye near its back end,through,

- which the thread passes into agroovc extending toward the eye in thepoint.

The sewing is performed as follows: The nee dle t perforates the cloth.The looper 0 draws. back as the needle descends and assumes the positionshown in the detached. Fig. ,5, the lower thread passing from the hook 9up to the looper, and thence to thecloth. The looper then goes forward(the spring take-up 8 keeping the thread tight) and the looper takes aloop of needle-thread, as seen in Fig. 3, and crossing the path of theneedle, as seen in Fig. 1; carries its own thread through thebuttonhole, (or at the edge of the fabric,) the needle in the meanwhilerising and quickly vdescending', while the looper pauses, so that theneedletakes a loop of thread from thelooper. The looper is then movedsuddenly backwardand down under the table, dropping its previous loop ofneedle-thread, which is drawn up by the take-up and the furtherdescentof the needle, the looper also drawing back, its thread beingaround the hook 9, whichalso assists to cause the previous stitch to vbe drawn up tightly. The needle then rises slightly, forming a loop ofthread; the looper flies forward through that loop; the needle rises,dropping itsprevious loop of lower or second thread around itsownthread, and so on, concatenating the loops of the two threads, so asto form a strongand handsome button-hole that presents onthe upper sidestitching with the loops of lower thread around the thread passing intothe perforations, and the loops of lower thread passing over the edgesofthe fabric and interlacing near the lower edge with the loop of theneedle-thread coming out. from the under side of the perforations insaid fabric. The lower thread being aroundthe hook 9, the

thread is drawn most tightly to pull more. i 1 threadoff the spool whenthelooper is backin 'vious stitch is pulled up when theperforatingneedle is at its lowest point. This draws the loops togethernear the lower edge of the fabric; but if the lower thread does not passaround thishookil, andthere is no change of tension, the loops will bepulled up when the looper is above the fabric, and the interlacing ofthe What-I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is- I t 1. Thecombination of the following devices:

first, a looperformed as an arc of a circle, with and segment acted onby a cam for giving looper, and having a loop of thread taken fromitself below the cloth, substantially as specitied. V v 1 '2. The combstrument acting from below the cloth iuthev pointed needle,

button-hole over the point of the looper, as specified. 3. Theeye-pointed needle, curved looper, and swinging pressure-foot, fittedand acting as aforesaid, in combination with the hook-y for holding thebutton-hole open where the looper ascends, as-specified.

4. The hook 9, in combine 0, for the purposes and as specified.

die acting above the cloth andfaloopiug-instrument passing up from belowthe. cloth-and delivering its, loop of thread over the needle in themanner specified, the cam p, lever m,

thread, as specified.

dle t and looper 0, operating substantially as specified, theheart-shaped slot h and crankpin 1, or equivalent mechanism, forcommuni- J. n. 'TARBOX'.

Witnesses CHAS. E. SMITH,

JAMES E. SERRELL, J r. v

the position shown in Fig. 5.; hence the preloops will be nearer thetopedge of the cloth.

an eye near the endand a groove extending along the side-andedge-thereof to an eye near the back end; second, an arm at the end of ia rockrshaft placed/diagonally to the bedof the machine and to the feed;third, a pinion.

. motion to the looper and carrying its point and eye from below thecloth up over. the-edge and, fourth, an eye-pointed needle acti'n gfromabove the cloth and taking a loop'-f roiu the ination-of aneye-pointed needle I acting from above the cloth and a looping-imarc ofa circle at an inclination to the eye as specified, with a pressure footacting to keep the cloth to the bed, bnt p o of being swungaside forpassing the i tion with thelooper:

'5. In combination with an eye-pointed neerv and eye 5, to take up theslack of the needle- 4 6. In combination with the eye-pointed nee--eating the movement specified to the needle, j so that the same willpause while in the cloth-

